What will be your suggestions for my bedroom studio?
I record synths and vocals and I use midi ports
I also have sometimes very heavy and messy plugin over use on my projects
Here's is a short info of my PC
Dell optiplex Intel core i56400T
Onboard GPU
16 gb installed ram
That works glitchy for now even with fresh win 11
I stack spires and many of a same plugins
(For final work I stem all)
I could not efford good soundcards for years an Ive been using my m-audio FasTrack from 2009 still to this day again After a bad shaped used lexicon u42 from 2022 until last April that I only buy to use midi with synths I liked its preamps and it's oddshape and nice led bars and stuff...

I was thinking about some budget options like uad volt 2
I want something that could handle plugin loads with midi and solid drivers

I'm between NI Audio 6 and Uad volt 2
What will be your suggestion? Beside of my current choices
Thanks

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2024

Buy better computer, talking from experience, not even RME can save you if you are hammering your CPU, I tried to salvage friends HP i5 2500 with everything and it's one of those things, we got him second hand HP ProDesk G4 with i7-8700/32GB DDR4 for 250 bucks, works like a charm.

Other then that, NI one for sure.

 

Plugin processing is done entirely in your CPU, so interface choice doesn't matter in that regard. If you need midi in and out, the Arturia Minifuse 2 is a very decent interface.

 

The Motu proposes both, NI has little dynamic sound & Uad volt 2 is not the first choice

MOTU M4 - 282 EUR

https://motu.com/en-us/products/m-series/m4/
https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/motu-m4-test/
https://www-bonedo-de.translate.goo...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

MOTU M2 - 233 EUR

https://motu.com/en-us/products/m-series/m2/
https://www.thomann.de/de/motu_m2.htm#bewertung

 

why not Audient ID14MKII? I am so happy with it

 

I bought a mint condition used
Native instuments komplete audio 6 MK2...
2 headphone outs
4 in 4 out audio + midi
Becuse the midi and solid drivers was the main focus..
Less than the price of a Volt 2 that I was trying to own...
I'm happy with it because even tho I was decided to buy a volt 2 with only a single L & R audio outs with the vibrations of the lack regarding it's audio outputs...
I end to that fantasy + I can be more satisfied with both extra outs and INS on budget soundcard...
Thanks to you all guys
Cheers

 

good choice! i have NI card

 

I would go for a seperate midi interface.they are not that expensive.and in that way your soundcard can use all of its resources for just audio only.
I still use 2 Echo Audiofire 12 ...perhaps old but perfect AD DA convertors...and chained so it gives me 24 ins and 24 outs...and they perform well and stable..from Win Xp up to now Win 11...i ll regret the day they ll die.

 

One more vote for Audient stuff, it's boutique quality at affordable prices.

Yes no I don't work for Audient

 

sooner than later you will meet Mr. Glitch again. new interface(very nice) aside, you'll need a beefy cpu. i have this modest 5700x 8 core. slices through any task. you would see a 5x increase in terms of processing speed, rendering, plugin count etc. good luck mate & congrats on the new interface

 

Yep
Of course it would be my next upgrade to change or upgrade my PC

I have a Dell optiplex 7050 currently that im not sure it's gonna handle more than it is now , because orignally this case was released with Intel core i3 CPU and I buy this PC from a friend with a intel core I56400t and 4gb ram

Later on I upgraded the ram to 16 gb and back then I was wusing Bitwig 4 with a messy project files with too much fx plugins between 2022/2023 the glitches became less and I learned the lesson with heavy projects and shift+deleted all of those projects in 2023 and started a more healthy work flow.
and but I guess right now my SSD is also slow too
Overall I'm going to get an better PC or upgrade it if it could handle more...
Thanks to all
I got my answers

 

Last edited: Feb 5, 2025

16GB RAM for audio anymore is a pittance. VSTI's are getting bigger and bigger with no end in sight. The new defacto ram spec for entry level audio == 32gb and even more == even better performance audio wise... Processors with more thread count will help as well as a NVMe for the OS and as many others that the budget will allow. Good quality audio hardware (not built in audio chipset) with good tried and true ASIO drivers are a must as well. All these things govern the amount of glitching you will encounter on a project as well as the complexity of the project itself and your workflow.

 

You should have bought the Audient, Arturia or anything else. Your used NI is most likely defective from what you speak about in your post about noise. Try to get your money back and start again.

 

Presonus Quantum ES 2 or ES 4
https://de.presonus.com/pages/quantum-es
Low latency ASIO drivers, good microphone and instrument preamps (developed by Fender), auto gain function, MIDI, remote control via Universal Control App, fair price, highly recommended!

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2025

in my laptop im very happy with uad volt 4, stable driver . . .
Not happy with all trash of ilock sotware from uad. With volt you can not download the asio driver from the net. . . you need to install ilock and a FUC**** program , and then install asio, after this you can uninstall ilock and all trash from uad . . . then backup your asio driver, and voila . . .

(using dell precission)

 

Wow, I once considered grabbing a UAD interface because I was curious about the built in compressor / vintage thing.. but that's absolute crap and weird that you need iLok to install their ASIO driver.

 

MOTU is great and there are affordable options, RME for sure great too but not so much affordable

 

Any RME stuff or UA Audio Interfaces

 

This does not sound right to me, either. ChatGPT say it is not. We do not have ASIO drivers on Macs, so it matters 0 to me. But I cannot see iLok wanting anything to do with device drivers they have nothing to do with, either. UAD on the other hand, have no qualms whatsoever about installing 10gb+ of installers for ALL their plugins; even though you have not expressed any interest in downloading them before you buy or ask for a demo of anything.